Today was my 17th workout in 17 days and 16 of those 17 days training. One day The past 2.5 weeks I trained twice.

The Producer of Forks Over Knives and I went to a gym downtown and played basketball for about 45 minutes and I was completely soaked and super worn out. Great cardio session and then I trained chest for an hour. I won 2 games easily and Brian squeaked away with a win in game 3. I let up a bit since I was dominant, sometimes winning with him only scoring once Gotta let the boss win too right I have way more size height and muscle so I have a big advantage but homeboy can shoot lights out! So when I stopped playing a lot of defense he nailed shot after shot.

Then I pounded out barbell bench press and moved over to dumbbell press. Pressed 100s with no spotter so felt good about getting a bit of strength back. I also did a few sets of bicep curls. I ended up with 5 or 6 sets of barbell bench and 5 sets of dumbbell presses. Lots of resting That basketball wore me out!

Then I sat in the sauna for at least 30 min, maybe more and had 2 Vega Sport Protein shakes. Then dinner at The Blossoming Lotus and watched the end of the National Championship game. Tough loss Oregon.

Brian and I were thinking about training, in fact somewhat planning on it, but I was considering a day off and we both got pretty busy so it worked well to just skip it.

Forks Over Knives is still doing well in Portland. Please tell you friends to see it as we've extended it for another week out here! www.forksoverknives.com

I had a really fun day, shipped books, got invited to be on a podcast that has listeners in 61 countries, learned my book is being presented to all Whole Foods Market regions right now, and I got 2 phone numbers today! Nice!

Started the day with a fruit smoothie, green smoothie, ate tofu, tempeh, avocado, garbanzo beans, mung beans for lunch......dinner at Portobello in Portland, perhaps the finest vegan restaurant here.

Good times.

Other cool things went down today too, I'm on TV tomorrow, better get some rest now.

Today I had to hit my alarm a bunch of times because I was hanging out late downtown celebrating another theater sell-out with Forks Over Knives Producer Brian. Then I missed my train and had to wait 30 min for the next one.

Got home late, posted my blog update, got to bed late, hit the alarm a bunch of times and then eventually met Brian around 1030 and took him to school on the basketball court, winning both games. I should let him win before he goes back to LA. I've won 6 of 7 games, usually by a large margin

After playing basketball we trained legs. I did about 6 sets of squats and 6 sets of lunges. I did both dumbbell and barbell walking lunges. I did a few extra sets of bodyweight squats and half a set of bicep curls

Just working now and heading to the post office and then shopping for food (sold some shorts to Vegan Essentials so now I can buy food....pumped!) and then off to see Forks Over Knives with some friends. The producer comp's my tickets so I don't have to pay since I work with the film, but I get my friends to come out and we have a fun time, help the theater sell-out and give this film a shot to rock this country!

Well, had my Vega, Sun Warrior, tofu, tempeh, pears, bananas and a few blueberries so now it's time to get some apples and oranges from the store after I ship out a book.

Thanks Hayley. I'll get pics up soon. I've been meaning to and will as I move forward.

Today I slept in a bit and didn't have to wake up at night to pee at all so I was pretty pumped about that. My alarm went off at 10AM and I got up and got to work. Really exciting day today. Forks Over Knives had 10 sell-out shows in Portland (so far....it's still playing). I got a flight booked to Vancouver, BC which they are sending me out to do some Forks promotion at a showing there next week so that is pretty cool.

I also found out my book is on the shelf at Borders in my home town! Perhaps it is in other Borders locations too? Please ask for it at your local store. I'm not where what to be more excited about...the fact that my book is in the Top 100 on Amazon's Best-Seller list in two categories (weight training and vegan) or that it is on the shelf at Borders. It feels like I'm finally making it as an author after a 20-year pursuit!

On to working out......

Brian and I met for a chest workout today.

We did a series of push-ups, pull-ups and squats to warm up and then moved to barbell bench press.

We completed 3 or 4 sets of flat bench and moved on to 3 sets of incline dumbbell press, 3 sets of incline dumbbell flys and then some wobbly push-ups as Brian called them using an unstable ball, then 3 sets of dips to finish up.

After the chest workout we played basketball. It was so funny! We always play basketball first but there was a team practice going on since we went late in the day rather than the middle of the day so we didn't hit the court until after an hour of pounding our upper body. We could barely shoot the ball. We laughed a lot.

We played our usual one-on-one games. I've won all of them but one which I kinda let Brian win

We play by 1's to 11. In our first game I won 11-1. Brian didn't feel like playing another game since it was his worst loss so far, ahead of 7-1 and 7-2 losses when we first started playing to 7. I convinced him to play another game as I wanted to get more cardio out of it. I let him back into the game after a convincing lead and took a bunch of shots I figured I'd miss to give him a chance....gotta play nice with the producer right....he was so bummed after the first game. He ended up winning in dramatic fashion 11-9 and was so happy! Even though I let him win, it was so worth it as he was pumped the rest of the night, even recalling his winning shot multiple times during dinner or in the car. I love making people feel good.

Dinner at Whole Foods Market, a little car tour of downtown Portland at night and now I'm back at Lean and Green's house for another dinner.

Today we had a really nice forum gathering in Portland, OR. I saw some people I hadn't seen in a long time. Off the top of my head we had Aaron, bvp663, Lean and Green, thendanisays, Tanya, JasonM, and me, as well as a handful of non-forum members who joined us for veggie sushi I think I have Jason's screen name posted incorrectly but as usual, it's late at night so I won't look it up at this time.

Brian and I trained arms and abs today. It was about an hour and 5 or an hour and 10 minutes long with little to no breaks. After each set of arms we'd do an ab exercise, then back to arms, back to abs, etc. for the full hour+.

We started with bunch of warm-up push-ups, hanging leg raises and reverse grip pull-ups.

Then we moved to EZ curl bicep curls followed by hanging leg raises. We did 4 sets of each.

Then we did alternating dumbbell bicep curls for 3 sets with hanging leg raises after each set. After that we did 3 sets of alternating dumbbell hammer curls, again followed by 3 sets of leg raises or bridge static holds for abs.

We moved on to triceps and did dumbbell triceps kickbacks followed by decline sit-ups or bridge static holds. We did 3 sets and then moved on to dumbbell two-hand overhead triceps extensions, again super setting with ab exercises. After that we did 3 sets of dips, also super-setting with decline sit-ups or bridge static holds.

We finished with more push-ups.

No basketball today because the gym closed early so I think we're meeting in the morning for an hour of hoops before watching the Jets game.

After that we watched Forks Over Knives with a forum group, then went out to dinner and ate as much sushi as we could handle Yeah Buddy!

I also did some writing today, finished a foreword for someone else' book yesterday and have a couple of magazine interviews to finish asap.

I'll work on adding photos to my journal. I know that will make it more exciting. It has just been a busy week, lots of movie promoting, etc.

I was up late last night (again...I know we're seeing a theme here) and for some reason couldn't sleep well. There was immense rainfall and it was quite loud so I guess that was part of it, but anyway, didn't sleep well. I finally got up around 11AM to a text message from Brian asking to meet him at noon for basketball. I brushed my teeth, got dressed, ate some fruit, made an energy drink and headed out the door.

We played 4 games of basketball and it was awesome! I wanted to make sure he won since it was his last day but I still managed to win the first two games, not even really on purpose and in the 3rd game I had a lead at game point and let him back into it to force overtime and he won and was so excited. Then we played a 4th and decisive game per his request saying that this 4th game is for all the marbles for the whole championship of the entire week of playing. Even though I had won perhaps 10 of 12 or 12 of 14 or something like that, we put it all on the line. He was fired up and in our quick game to 5 (by 1's, usually we play to 11) he won even with a solid effort on my part. He was super happy! And I was happy. I won 11-9, 11-9, lost 12-10 and in the final game he got me 5-2. Much better than the 7-1 and 11-1 and 11-4 type wins I had all week

After that we ate a ton of fruit, like pounds of it. Then watched the JETS game and after every score we did 25 push-ups and decided to go for another workout. We trained back and shoulders, all free weights for about an hour. I got pretty pumped and even took a few pics for fun.

After that I showered a 2nd time and then went out on a date. Went to Vita Cafe in Portland and then rented Hitch and watched it on the couch with my friend.

Then came home and Giacomo (Lean and Green) made late dinner and I'm up working away around midnight finishing dinner and writing emails and listening to rap music.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Corvallis to see my book on the shelves at Borders. I heard it's there and I'm PUMPED! I've never seen it on shelves in big bookstore before!

21 workouts in 21 days. Today I took a planned rest day. During those 21 days I did take 2 days off, and just got multiple workouts in a couple of times making it 21 in 21.

I would have rather have done more "resting" on my rest day but I only slept a few hours and spent more time in my car than my bed. Traveling today. Took Brian to the airport, drove to Corvallis, drove back to Portland, met with another Brian for a few hours reviewing some footage from Vegan Brothers in Iron and then back to Lean and Green's.

Just spent the past hour helping Lean and Green cleaning the house, now it's after midnight and time for a late dinner.

I'm soooooo tired! Lack of sleep gets to me, but also driving so many hours takes a lot out of me.

Time for calories. I wanted to sleep in, but have to be up early tomorrow too. Lots of work to do, then off to Canada in 2 days. Then LA after that.

Thanks. Plan to add pics soon, just ran into another busy streak....it has lasted bout 6 years now

Today I trained in Mikkei's garage and it was awesome! All barbells all night! We warmed up with a variety of push-ups, bodyweight squats and dumbbell raises and barbell presses, and then it was legs the rest of the night.

We probably did about 8 sets of barbell squats and got some great pics, very helpful for me as well since I haven't done squats much in the past 7 years. Then we did about 4 sets of barbell lunges. That was it and we were at it for over an hour. We lifted with a lot of effort. I managed to squat 205 pounds for the first time in about 7 years, since I haven't been doing squats at all for that length of time and with my recent return to the exercise 195 was my latest max.

With barbell lunges I used 195 pounds as my max and still got a lot of reps out of it.

I should head to bed now. I haven't been getting enough sleep and have had a few things stressing me out lately, just little, irritating things but I'll overcome it.